I’ve debated for nearly the last five years as to whether to devote a blog post to this topic, whether it lowered the tone of this blog. I raised it with my good lady the other day and she said ‘it’s common knowledge, and it might help in a small way, so publish.’ So I have.

What I’ve observed over my decades of using public or shared toilet facilities is this, and it concerns male hygiene: a lot of men don’t wash their hands after using the facilities. Horrifyingly, their propensity to not wash afterwards seems to increase when there’s food and drink involved, so in restaurants, bars and clubs.

I’ve never understood this. Your body expels waste products for a reason. Why would you not wash your hands and reduce the risk of infection? Why would you not reduce the risk of infection to others, to the people with whom you’re socialising?

Is it that men can’t be bothered, or is it that it’s more macho not to care about such things? Whether it’s laziness or lack of respect for our fellow man, it baffles me.

When I was a kid, you sneezed into your handkerchief or a tissue. No-one seems to have a handkerchief any more. We tell our kids to ‘sneeze into your elbow’, the thinking being, I suppose, that if you sneeze into your hands it makes it easier for the germs to spread.

Who can actually sneeze into their elbow anyway? Your elbow, which I’m randomly realising as I write this is an anagram of below, is on the outside of your arm. You can’t actually sneeze into it.

So for now I’m all about ‘sneeze into your crook’. Not a crook, or any other hoodlum, mind you. The crook of your arm, the inside bit that’s created when you bend the arm at the elbow. It’s an odd word I know, but it makes more sense and is much more natural.